Author(s): Natalie Goldberg

Biography

A powerful memoir from Natalie Golderg--the woman who changed the way writing is taught in this country--sharing her experience with cancer grounded in her practice of writing and Zen.

A moving and clear-looking memoir on being in love with your life even when life brings illness, from longtime Zen practitioner and world-renowned writing teacher Natalie Goldberg.

When Natalie learns that she has CLL, a potentially fatal form of blood cancer, she is plunged into the world of hospitals, doctors, and medication. While trying to find a footing in this new and strange world, her partner, Yu-kwan, is also diagnosed with cancer. The cancer twins, as Natalie calls herself and Yu-kwan, must each navigate their own illness while somehow trying to stay in love and heal.

"When you go through extreme sickness, when everything you know and lived is tossed out the window and glass shatters . . . this too is part of life. Don't give up. Pay attention. We have to make ourselves larger to include the inconceivable."

Through a direct and grounded narrative, Natalie illuminates a path through illness: that we need to be in love with the life we have, to embrace the dark and the light in our life. For Natalie, writing and painting represent the light, and her cancer takes her deeper into her art practices. Balanced with a Zen practice that helps her to face death, this book is a moving meditation on living life in full bloom.